The managing director of a Swindon-based coach operator has spoken out after chaos at the Dover crossing led to passengers waiting several hours to get onto ferries. 

Miles of queues at the port over the weekend caused massive disruption for people making deliveries and heading off on trips to the mainland.

One Barnes Coaches vehicle full of 48 youngsters from Swansea arrived at Dover at 9.30pm on Friday but could not get onto a ferry until 12.45pm the next day.

During this 15-hour wait at the end of a nine-hour journey, children reportedly fell ill due to a lack of meals as the 24-hour service station was closed and a small petrol station ran out of food and toilet paper.

Driver Robert Bordula said: "People handed out KitKats, crisps and bottles of water, which was very good - but the kids were not doing well. 

"Some of them were physically sick as they had not had a substantial meal for around 15 hours.

“I feel sorry for them, it's not fair on the thousand of kids stuck in this situation.

“One of my colleagues, who has been a coach driver for over 25 years, had never seen anything like it."

Matt Barnes, of Barnes Coaches, said the start of the Easter school holidays saw the company's worst-ever delays at the Channel crossing.

Along with the ski trip, one coach waited seven-and-a-half hours to board a ferry while another queued for 11 hours and 45 minutes.

He hopes this mess will act as a wake-up call to ferry companies and the government, and lead to similar situations being avoided in future.

Mr Barnes told the Adver: "Brexit is the problem overall. They knew this problem was coming but did nothing to stop it.

"The port and ferry companies claim they didn't know so many coaches were being booked but one call would have sorted that out.

"There needs to be more communication between everyone, and more staff on the French side.

"I think we have bottomed out, so hopefully things will improve. The government can't ignore this now.

"The drivers did a great job keeping the passengers on-side until they got through, we had good feedback about them.

"We have seven coaches crossing this weekend which we expect to go a lot smoother because there has been more communication going on since Monday. 

"It's still the cheapest and most environmentally-friendly way to travel to the continent."

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